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Friday, July 18, 2008

Inconvenient messenger -- Who's Algore?

Algore gave a speech yesterday, the whole drive-by media world went ga ga with it. Of the nearly 120 reactions listed by Google this morning, most were drive-by suck-ups. The followings are only a few interesting exceptions that American people will not hear:

Yes, you know that he's former Vice President of the United States, and he's a winner of Nobel Peace Prize in the same company with Yasi Arafat and Jimmy Carter. What else do you know about him?

Well, Algore, aka Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. is the son of Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. of course. He was born in Washington D.C. and grown up in Fairfax Hotel where Al Gore, Sr. took residence. Beyond all these, I think you might get the impression from the drive-by media types that he is a very smart guy. But based on what? I found this Op-Ed article in Bostom Globe rather illuminating.

Oh yes, Algore is a Harvard graduate. In 2000, WaPo, the Washington Post, revealed his Harvard academic record as "riddled with C's, including a C-minus in introductory economics, a D in one science course, and a C-plus in another". Now overwhelming majority of world scientists are following him?

Well, before Harvard, Algore also enrolled in Vandebilt Divinity School and Vandebilt Law School. Clearly he earned no degree from either of them. As a matter of fact, according to the author of the book "Inventing Al Gore" Algore spent three semesters at the Divinity school, took eight courses, he received grade F in five of the courses.

These are all minor things, of no particular consequense of course. But one thing I know but no one seems to care mentioning is the fact that when he was the Vice President, he was put in charge of a major project called "Reinvention of the government" or something to that effect with seemingly huge unlimited budget. I was a government worker at the time and I was very encouraged to see somethinbg like that happening. But somehow that was conspicuously never been mentioned ever again -- not in any of Algore's accomplishment enumerations anywhere.

Objectively, until the global warming mumble jumble, other than election to the congress and senate under his father's name, has Algore ever involved anything that can be directly considered as an unconditional successful?

Can we trust our energy policy and our country's future to someone like Algore?

Apparently complacent about criticism from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research that his family's energy use at his Nashville home is more than 19 times greater than the average American household's, Al Gore has committed conspicious energy consumption once again.

In Washington D.C. Thursday to deliver yet another speech warning Americans about global warming caused, Gore believes, by excessive use of fossil fuels, Gore handed yet more evidence to critics who believe he's a hypocrite.

He did so by traveling to his speech in what almost certainly was an unnecessary entourage of three luxury gas-guzzling vehicles -- two Lincoln Town Cars and a Surburban SUV -- one of which was kept idling outside for twenty minutes, apparently to keep the interior cool for the driver, Mrs. Gore and the Gores' adult daughter.

We know this because the free-market group Americans for Prosperity took a video camera to speech to film not only the Gore family's vehicle choices, but to interview Gore acolytes who declined sponsors' advice to walk, ride a bike or take public transportation to the speech. (You can see the group's very funny four-minute video online here -- my favorite part is the woman who tries to claim a taxi is public transportation.)

So the essence of Algore's message to American people is basically very simple, as summarized by Ed Driscoll: "Sacrifice for Thee -- But Not for Me."